BtoB's Best Marketers: Christa Carone, Xerox Corp.

Most Popular

At the recent U.S. Open tennis tournament, Xerox Corp. kicked off an integrated sponsorship that included video vignettes called “Beyond the Baseline Presented by Xerox.” The videos provided a behind-the-scenes look at the tournament, such as how ball girls and boys are selected and how media are kept informed and the grounds groomed. The initiative also included print, radio and social media, as well as a crowdsourced digital fan book and free photo printing for fans.
“We're not Coca-Cola,” said Xerox CMO Christa Carone. “We do it in such a way that it's relevant with our brand positioning.”
The sponsorship dovetails with the 2-year-old “Ready for Real Business” campaign, which shows how Xerox helps companies with their back-end operations so they can focus on their core businesses. Carone said that while “ "Real Business' continues to be the focus,” the company is in the process of “up-leveling the message to focus on the breadth of Xerox's offerings and outsourcing services.”
Xerox will be highlighting such services as its healthcare claims processing, custom call centers, automatic tolls and dynamic pricing for municipal parking. The services business generates more than half of Xerox's income and is the fastest-growing division within the company. Xerox's second-quarter revenue declined 1% overall from a year earlier, to $5.5 billion, but IT outsourcing was up 9%, business-process outsourcing grew 8% and document outsourcing rose 6%.
The company continues to present its message through a variety of channels, including events and social media. For example, it produced a two-minute Web video called “A World Made Simpler by Xerox” to show its evolution; so far, it's received more than 650,000 views.
Carone said Xerox is boosting the quality of its Web content. She added that the day after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the Affordable Care Act, Xerox had one of its healthcare program administration experts opine online about the law and the company's progress toward creating insurance exchanges.
A few years ago, Carone said, the trend was “to build community first. We're taking a focus on content first.”